Goluremi and TikToker CEO William John admitted he didn’t know who former CNN host Don Lemon was before participating in their now viral video.
“I didn’t know who he was originally. It’s a funny thing,” John said Fox News Digital. “He’s one of those guys that’s only been on the news, you know, for, I don’t know how long, almost 15 years or something. And so, my cameraman said, there’s this guy. And I looked, and I recognized the face, but I don’t know the name.”
The former professional footballer bumped into Lemon last month when they were both doing interviews for their respective channels. During the video, Lemon asked John to comment on the press and Democratic politicians who claim X CEO Elon Musk is the real shadow president.
Goluremi CEO William John and former CNN host Don Lemon debated how credible the mainstream media is. (Will John via @Goluremi)
“Democratic lawmakers in Washington now call Elon Musk ‘President Musk,’ and they say Donald Trump is the vice president or chief of communications,” Lemon said.
“What? Wait a minute, no. Nobody said that,” John said.
Lemon cut him off, “Really? Haven’t you been paying attention…”
“Absolutely not. I pay attention to what I’m doing during the day so I can try to get a better life and get ahead,” John said, later calling it “a loaded question.”
John described how Lemon “skipped on his talking points” by quoting mainstream media like ABC News and the Washington Post, a move John called “absurd.”
“I don’t look at the mainstream. And right now he’s signifying the problem that I think we as Americans have with the mainstream,” John said. “You’re out of touch with us, and the independent media is getting stronger. And the reason we’re becoming so powerful and so important to the American people is because there’s a huge disconnect and we feel like we’re together.”
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John called Lemon’s comments “absurd” and an example of a problem in the mainstream media. (Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images)
Although he criticized Lemon’s behavior, John agreed that he had concerns how much influence does musk have about President-elect Donald Trump.
“I think it’s quite impossible to say that the richest man in the world has no influence on things. We would all be quite, quite naive to believe that. Where and how much that influence is, it’s very difficult for us from the outside to know and I think that’s obvious what’s worrying,” John said.
Still, he thinks it’s “a beautiful thing” that people around the world are “waking up” to mainstream media that is “caught up in these lies,” adding that average viewers “feel like we deserve better.”
“The mainstream has already changed,” John said. “I think part of the problem is that when he cites these … Axios, Business Insider, ABC News, all these things, it doesn’t carry the weight that it did in the ’80s or the ’60s or back then. That part is it’s over, therefore, the shift has already happened.”
John spoke to Fox News Digital about his video and the state of independent media. (Fox News Digital)
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He added: “And I think people need to understand, like the mainstream media, that we don’t necessarily look at these forms of media as the be-all and end-all. The truth is it’s still going to be hard to discern, but at the very least, you’ll have deal with a more informed public in the next five to ten years because we can talk about it, debate it and gather information and gather that information and make more educated decisions.”
